Sarah
Winnemucca's birth coincided with the beginning of an era
of dramatic historical changes for her people, changes in
which she would play an important and often thankless role.
She worked throughout her life to communicate between her
people and the white people, to defend Paiute rights, and
to create understanding.

"I
was born somewhere near 1844, but am not sure of the precise
time. I was a very small child when the first white people
came into our country. They came like a lion, yes, like
a roaring lion, and have continued so ever since, and
I have never forgotten their first coming. My people were
scattered at that time over nearly all the territory now
known as Nevada. My grandfather was chief of the entire
Piute nation, and was camped near Humboldt Lake, with
a small portion of his tribe, when a party travelling
eastward from California was seen coming. When the news
was brought to my grandfather, he asked what they looked
like? When told that they had hair on their faces, and
were white, he jumped up and clasped his hands together
and cried aloud--"My white brothers--my long-looked for
white brothers have come at last!" (Sarah Winnemucca,
Life Among the Piutes).

Born
into the Northern Paiute tribe in 1844, she was given the
name Thocmetony, which means "shell flower":

"Many
years ago, when my people were happier than they are now,
they used to celebrate the Festival of Flowers in the
spring . . . Oh, with what eagerness we girls used to
watch every spring for the time when we could meet with
our hearts' delight, the young men, whom in civilized
life you call beaux. We would all go in company to see
if the flowers we were named for were yet in bloom, for
almost all the girls were named for flowers ... All the
girls who have flower-names dance along together, and
those who have not go together also.

"I will repeat what we say of ourselves. 'I, Sarah Winnemucca,
am a shell-flower, such as I wear on my dress. My name
is Thocmetony. I am so beautiful! Who will come and dance
with me while I am so beautiful? Oh, come and be happy
with me! I shall be beautiful while the earth lasts. Somebody
will always admire me; and who will come and be happy
with me in the Spirit-land? I shall be beautiful forever
there. Yes, I shall be more beautiful than my shell-flower,
my Thocmetony! Then, come, oh come, and dance and be happy
with me!' The young men sing with us as they dance beside
us" (Life Among the Piutes).

At
the time of her birth, Northern Paiutes and Washos were
the sole inhabitants of the land that is now western Nevada.
Her grandfather, Chief Truckee, welcomed the arrival of
his "white brothers" and helped General John C. Fremont
in the Bear War against Mexican control of California. However,
her father, Chief Winnemucca, did not trust the white people
and cautioned his own people to keep their distance. Perhaps
hearing these opposite viewpoints became a portent of her
life, which was spent attempting to interpret the two cultures
to each other.

Sarah
was first introduced to white people at age six when her
grandfather insisted she go with him to California. She
was initially frightened, but did like such luxuries as
beds, chairs, brightly colored dishes and the food she was
served. When she was thirteen, her grandfather had arranged
for Sarah and her sister to become members of Major Ormsby's
household at Mormon Station, now Genoa, Nevada. By the time
she was fourteen, she had acquired five languages, three
Indian dialects, English and Spanish. Both times that she
left her tribe, Sarah returned following an incident of
white people treating her tribe poorly.

Sarah's
final visit in the white culture at age sixteen fulfilled
her grandfather's deathbed request that she and her sister
Elma be educated in a convent school at San Jose, California.
The two girls were never officially admitted to the school,
but during their few weeks there, she continued to acquire
more knowledge and experience in the new culture.

As
Sarah reached maturity, the white emigration west continued
to encroach on Paiute territory, and eventually, whites
insisted on moving all Indians onto reservations, first
the Pyramid Lake Reservation in Nevada, then the Malheur
Indian Reservation in Oregon, and finally to Yakima, Washington.
The days of hunting and gathering freely had ended for her
tribe. In 1871, at the age of twenty-seven, Sarah began
working as an interpreter for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
at Fort McDermitt on the Oregon border. During this time,
she married Lt. E. C. Bartlett but left him within a year
because of his intemperance. She later married an Indian
husband, but left him for his gross abuse of her.

In 1872, Sarah was with her people on the Malheur Reservation
in Oregon where Indian Agent Samuel Parrish was treating
everyone fairly. However, he was replaced with a less reliable
agent, and as problems mounted on the reservations, Sarah
prepared to travel to Washington, D.C. to speak out on behalf
of her people, a trip that was interrupted while she aided
U.S. troops in the Bannock war of 1878. Sarah offered her
services to the Army as an interpreter and scout. She saved
her father, whose lodge had been surrounded by hostile Indians,
by traveling without sleep over 200 miles in 48 hours over
treacherous Idaho terrain.

In
January, 1880, she pleaded the Indian's cause in Washington,
D.C. before Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz and President
Rutherford B. Hayes. Eventually, Sarah did receive promises
of improvements for her people, which were later broken
by the government. Despite her advocacy for her people,
the broken promises caused them to distrust her. Still,
she dedicated the remainder of her life to her work, giving
more than 400 speeches to gain support for the Paiutes.
Many of her speeches were given on the East Coast through
the support of Elizabeth Peabody and Mary Peabody Mann.

She
also was dedicated to teaching school to Paiute children
and opened a school for Indian children called "Peabody's
Institute" near Lovelock, Nevada. When her husband, at that
time Lt. L. H. Hopkins, died of tuberculosis and the school
was closed, Sarah moved to Montana to spend her last days
with her sister Elma.

Sarah
died on October 17, 1891.

"Sarah
Winnemucca will always be remembered as a dedicated Native
American woman who belonged to two cultures. With one
foot in the Indian Nation and the other in the white man's
world, she sped across the plains like a blazing arrow
only to fall short of her target. Although the Princess
was recognized throughout the land as the passionate voice
of the Paiute Indians, she was treated with indifference
by the United States Government. Disillusioned and betrayed,
Sarah died before she completed her, mission, believing
herself to be a failure (Seagraves, High Spirited Women
of the West).

Life
Among the Piutes is Sarah Winnemucca's powerful legacy
to both cultures, the Native Americans and the whites. It
appeared in 1883, the first book ever published that was
written by a Native American woman. Following the oral tradition
of her people, she reaches out to readers with a deeply
personal appeal for understanding, recording a portion of
the history of the far west from the Native American perspective.
The book was a monumental achievement, recording the Native
American viewpoint of whites settling the west, told in
a language that was not her own and written and published
by a woman during the time when even white women were not
allowed to vote, second only to the work she performed every
day to promote understanding across cultures. Posthumously,
she was awarded the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Award for
her book from the Friends of the Library, University of
Nevada, Reno. In 1994 an elementary school in Washoe County
School District was named in her honor, Sarah Winnemucca
Elementary.

Biographical
sketch by Victoria Ford

Published
works:

Hopkins,
Sarah Winnemucca. Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs
and Claims, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883.

Sources
of Information:

Hopkins,
Sarah Winnemucca. Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs
and Claims, Reno: University of Nevada Press, (reprint),
1994.